History of a Pastie

The Balanced Meal in a Crust!

A pasty (pron.: /ˈpæsti/), is a baked pastry. It is made by placing uncooked filling typically of meat and vegetables, without meat in vegetarian versions, on a flat pastry circle and folding it to wrap the filling, crimping the edge to form a seal. After baking, the result is a raised semicircular comestible. Pasties from Mackinaw Pastie are sealed with our unique crimping method!

Our pasties are filled with chicken, beef or vegetable and cheese. We also serve variations with our Pastie Stroganoff, Pastie Grande (with taco sauce) and Pastie Italiano (with marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese). View our menu!

In some areas, pasties are a significant tourist attraction, including an annual Pasty Fest in Calumet, Michigan in late June. Pasties in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan have a particularly unusual history, as a small influx of Finnish immigrants followed the Cornish miners in 1864. These Finns (and many other ethnic groups) adopted the pasty for use in the Copper Country copper mines. They were very handy lunches for those working all day in the U.P. mines. The pasty has become strongly associated with Finnish culture in this area, and in the culturally similar Iron Range in northern Minnesota. View our historic photos from the mining and lumber camps of northern Michigan below.